Glass Tidings

by Amy Jo Cousins

  “Do you know, last month their new delivery guy tried to say he wouldn’t deliver all the way here?” Rhonda said as she heaved herself up from her seat. “As if they don’t get more business from us than the rest of the town put together half the year. Ha.”

  At Rhonda’s kitchen cabinet where she kept the glasses, Eddie paused with his fingers around two pint glasses lifted from dive bars in small towns around the US, while Rhonda dug out her phone and ordered dinner.

  It wasn’t exactly a beer stein, but he did have a drinking glass of his own in his duffel . . .

  Knowing it would provoke questions, he brought out a single pint glass and then went and dug out Gray’s family teacup from his bag.

  Maybe he wanted those questions after all.

  Rhonda’s raised eyebrow was the only sign she saw anything odd in Eddie sipping ale out of a china teacup, and Eddie realized he’d discouraged questions so strongly over the years that he wasn’t going to be able to manipulate this situation.

  He’d just have to admit that what he wanted more than anything was to talk about Gray to someone who knew him and would tell him he hadn’t fucked this up completely.

  “The man I was staying with is named Gray,” he said after a few minutes of silence.

  Rhonda nodded and reached over to pour more ale in his cup.

  “This was his grandma’s,” Eddie said, lifting it. “He gave it to me before . . .” He trailed off, because even though he was going back, it still hurt to remember. “He has a lot of his family’s things around this big house he’s got half fixed up. I think because his mom and dad and grandparents are all gone and he’s mostly alone, it feels like he’s still got them close when he sees their stuff. So he’s got his gran’s watercolor paintings in the hallway and all of his dad’s old science fiction books in the library, and his mom’s teacups in the kitchen.”

  “Sounds like a nice place to land,” was her only comment.

  “It was.” He thought about the bookcases and the toadstool sugar bowl and the man who was sitting by himself, reading and drinking and never thinking to light a fire without someone there to remind him of how cozy it was to have one burning merrily in the fireplace.

  Eddie had never missed anyone—had never let himself miss anyone—the way he missed Gray.

  He’d spent his entire life refusing to hang on to anything, because no one had ever hung on to him. And maybe that was bullshit, pop psychology self-analysis he’d picked up from years of listening to Rhonda solve everyone’s troubles by the light of a campfire.

  But it didn’t feel like bullshit.

  It felt true, and like something he was ready to change about himself for the first time since he’d hit the road all those years ago.

  Maybe Clear Lake didn’t know it needed Eddie yet, but Eddie was ready to hang on to that town. And Gray. The big old house and the shop and Mrs. Wasserman and even Christine the Cop. Eddie was going to get a good grip and hold on tight. For good.

  He wasn’t letting go of his old life either. This hanging on thing was going to work in all directions.

  Gray’s doorbell rang in the middle of the night the day after Eddie left like someone had fallen asleep against the buzzer, the old-school tones never ceasing.

  Even as he jogged down the stairs, heart racing so fast with the adrenaline he was dizzy with it, he told himself it probably wasn’t Eddie. Definitely wasn’t. But even as his mouth moved on silent words—Don’t be stupid, it isn’t him—his lungs seized from lack of oxygen and his hands spasmed at his sides, wanting to hold on to something, to Eddie, so badly.

  He flung open the door.

  The man on his front steps was . . . a child. The totally-inappropriate-for-the-weather hoodie and jeans might be similar, but Gray recognized the boy who’d been coming around the shop for the past few weeks, lurking in the aisles.

  The boy who’d tried to bribe Eddie not to tell. Who’d fucked up everything good Gray had had in his life for the first time in a decade.

  Before he could open his mouth to snarl out a fuck off, the boy kicked the icy stalactite growing from the leaking gutter above the door all the way to the stoop, glaring at Gray as the ice shattered over both their shoes.

  “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  “What?” As if Gray didn’t know exactly who he meant. Just because he’d never used the word didn’t mean Gray hadn’t been waiting to, holding out for the moment when it would come out naturally. When someone asked who the artist was who made the glass ornaments maybe . . . My boyfriend.

  Just because he’d never had the nerve didn’t mean he didn’t know exactly who the boy was referring to.

  “That guy. Where is he?”

  Before Gray could say, He’s gone, words that made him flinch, the swaying teen growled at him and bared his teeth like a wounded animal.

  “He said it was gonna be better. Tell him thanks for nothing.”

  Shit. Even through his lingering anger, Gray could feel the pain radiating off the boy, like heat from the fires he’d stopped lighting in the fireplace now that Eddie was gone. He was so the wrong guy for this. “Listen, kid, if you need some help . . .”

  If. Ha. This kid needed all kinds of help. Clearly.

  “I don’t need anything.” The kid slashed a hand across his own face, scraping off tears. “My mom can’t even . . . Nobody will look at me. They all hate me now.”

  “I’m sure they don’t . . .” Gray let his voice trail off. What the fuck did he know? Maybe they did. People were fucking horrible.

  The kid’s face froze in a rictus of pain.

  “I should’ve been the one who almost died,” he whispered, lurching back, his heels sliding off the icy steps. Arms pinwheeling, he righted himself, then took off down the sidewalk, hands thrust deep in the hoodie pockets.

  Holy shit.

  Gray didn’t know what the fuck he was supposed to do now.

  Don’t let the kid out of your sight, for one. If he kills himself because he’s got so much guilt about Lily Rose, and you could have stopped it . . .

  Jogging down the sidewalk behind the hunched, hooded stick of a teenager, Gray sent a mental prayer for forgiveness winging Eddie’s way, wherever he was.

  I get it. The kid’s a real person. When he’s right in front of you, all his words bleeding pain, you can’t not see it. He needs help.

  Help Gray was not capable of giving, so he pulled his phone out and dialed Christine the Cop. And ignored the sharp pain under his sternum as he heard Eddie’s voice in his head, using the sarcastic nickname.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Grayson. I’m pretty sure the kid who hit Lily Rose is on his way to kill himself. I’m following him east on Linden Street. How fast can you get here?” He knew without asking that unless she were literally standing in front of a building on fire with people inside needing rescuing, Christine would come.

  Sure enough, there wasn’t a moment’s hesitation.

  “Ten minutes.”

  Gray hoped he wasn’t making a terrible mistake. What could they actually do? It wasn’t as if the kid had done anything wrong. Anything else wrong, at least. Christine couldn’t arrest him for being suicidal, and even if she could, that probably wouldn’t do anything except delay the inevitable.

  But he was damn glad to see the police cruiser glide to a halt at the curb after the kid crossed another side street, Gray lagging a hundred feet behind.

  He saw Christine climb out of the car and jog around the trunk to where the kid had frozen in place on the sidewalk and saw her mouth move as she spoke to the boy. But he couldn’t hear anything they said at first.

  “I can’t go home!” The howl that rang out from the other side of the cop car made Gray wince. “I can’t! They hate me!”

  Christine’s voice rose up again, slow, measured words that reassured with the weight of them. The calm authority of a solid woman. After another minute, the kid’s voice, shaky, interrupted by hiccups, murmured back. Both of them we
re tall enough that Gray could see their heads above the roof of the cop car. Christine’s head kept turning toward Gray, as if checking on him maybe. Or . . .

  No way.

  By the time Christine rounded the front of the car, tromping through the snow to cross the street, Gray was already shaking his head.

  “He needs somewhere to go for just a little while, Grayson. I’m asking you a big favor here. Again. I know it. But I don’t want him to take off while I go try to talk to his parents, and I’m not sure bringing him with me will help matters at the moment.”

  Again. And look how the last favor had turned out.

  Good. It turned out so good. For a while, at least.

  This wasn’t going to be the same.

  “I don’t know anything about teenagers.” But that wasn’t a no, and they both heard it.

  “Nobody knows shit about teenagers.”

  “What do I do tonight?”

  Christine shrugged. “I don’t know. Make him some hot chocolate. See if he’ll talk to you. Give him a place to sleep.”

  “What if he runs away again?” Gray grimaced. “That seems to be a thing for people who stay with me.”

  Christine socked him on the arm, then rubbed the spot she’d punched. “Shut up. It is not. And I’m not asking you to be his jailer. If he takes off, try to make a note of which direction and call me.”

  “What if he . . .” He couldn’t say it.

  Look at the mess he’d made of the last stray Christine had dropped in his lap. Wherever Eddie was, it was hundreds of miles from Clear Lake, and he wasn’t keeping in touch.

  But that thought was the anchor Gray needed. He’d screwed up, yes. But it had been worth it, trying. And this . . . this was a thing he could do.

  Christine looked at him and grimaced. “Let me go talk to his parents. I’ll be back in an hour. I’ll tell Jane I’m pulling an all-nighter. We can watch him together. You’ve got plenty of couches.”

  Small-town policing was always an around-the-clock job, a killer of plenty of marriages. Gray didn’t need his hand held. He could do this.

  “Nah.” He shook his head. “We’ll be fine. If I get worried, I’ll call you. I do just want to repeat that I know nothing about kids and how to handle their . . .” Gray’s voice trailed off.

  “I’ll have a social worker out to your place first thing in the morning one way or another,” Christine promised him, hands squeezing his arm gratefully. “Hey, Adrian! C’mere.”

  An hour later, Gray found himself frozen in his kitchen at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. The half-full pot of coffee in his hand trembled as he held his breath, listening to the noise of someone creeping out of his house.

  He hadn’t had the nerve to offer the boy a shower when they got back. What if he cut his wrists? Not that Gray had anything except safety razors in the bathrooms, but who knew what a teenager would do? Drink the bleach or something. He’d sent Adrian to bed after stripping the sheets off the guest bed, which made his heart ache because they smelled like Eddie, and he resented the boy for forcing that change.

  Christine had told him to talk, but Gray didn’t have any words left that could help anyone.

  When the wooden boards in the hall entryway creaked, he called out, swamped with déjà vu at the words coming out of his mouth.

  “I’ve got coffee if you want something warm to take with you.” The pang in his chest at the memory of buying coffee at the grocery store because Eddie liked it better than tea . . .

  Not a sound.

  “Might as well grab a sandwich first too.”

  The flashbacks to Eddie’s first night made his voice thick, and Gray hated himself, hated Eddie, hated the kid even, for all of these stupid emotions that kept defrosting around people he hadn’t asked to have in his fucking house, damn it. In his house. In his life.

  “Listen, kid.” He was done. Just fucking done. Gray slammed the coffee mug on the counter and cursed when it cracked. And Eddie had thought he was the one who broke things. “You want to hit the road, I don’t give a flying fuck. Don’t act like I’m keeping you here. But have the balls to let me know you’re leaving so I can lock the door behind you.”

  He grabbed the dish towel hanging from the refrigerator door and scrubbed his face with it, because he was not fucking crying.

  When he finished, the kid was standing in the doorway in his stocking feet.

  No shoes. Maybe he wasn’t taking off after all.

  “Travel mugs are in the cabinet,” Gray said, lifting his chin at the correct door. “Just don’t take the black one. That’s my favorite.”

  Might as well start passing out pieces of his life to random strangers, since they weren’t worth enough to make anyone want to stay with him.

  Which was maybe the most self-pitying sentence he’d ever let float through his brain.

  “I know that cop made you take me. Figured you wouldn’t give a shit if I left.”

  Gray remembered cursing in front of adults when he was a teenager. How it had scared him, while at the same time feeling like he was staking a claim to his own personhood. I’m just as real as you are. See? I can use bad words too. Amazing how important he’d thought it was to own adult language when all of the really important things had nothing to do with curse words and defensiveness.

  Ripping himself out of his own maudlin thoughts, he knocked the sugar container closer to the kid with his wrist.

  “That cop couldn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do. And her name is Christine.” Shit. Maybe teenagers weren’t supposed to call police officers by their first names. This shit was complicated. Better off sticking to the basics. “She’s not as scary as she looks. You want to crash here for the night, you’re welcome to the bed.”

  “What happened to that guy who was here? Eddie.”

  A sharp ache lanced through his ribs. Gray shook his head. He couldn’t. Talk to the kid, Christine had said, but he just couldn’t talk. Not about this.

  “He was only ever passing through.”

  No matter how hard Gray had wished that weren’t true.

  “Yeah, that’s what he said. That he never stayed in one place for very long. I thought . . . I thought maybe I could do that,” Adrian said, gnawing at the raw, red corner of his mouth in between sentences.

  Knowing his words would cause pain, Gray did his best to soften his voice. “Eddie wasn’t out on bail. You run and you’re in a whole new world of trouble, kid.”

  Whatever stuff the boy had put in his hair to make it swoop across his eyes was rapidly giving up any pretense of control. Dark bangs sagged in the boy’s face, and when he lifted a hand to push them to the side, it trembled with exhaustion.

  “I can’t stay here.” The boy’s voice broke. “I just can’t.”

  “A terrible thing happened and—”

  “It didn’t happen.” Acidly bitter words. “I did it. I did the terrible thing.”

  His voice shook like he expected Gray to argue with him. Or attack him.

  “Yes, you did.” Pretending Adrian hadn’t put a girl in the hospital wasn’t going to help either of them.

  At Gray’s calm words, the kid’s eyes flew up to meet his and his hands spasmed, knocking over the travel mug. The boy cursed and righted it.

  A long, complicated metaphor about accidents and responsibility passed through Gray’s brain like mist, but he didn’t bother to say anything out loud. The kid didn’t want to be here. Gray didn’t want him here. It wasn’t his job to fix anyone, and thank fucking god, because he clearly did a crap job at that.

  Memories of Eddie with a broken teacup in his hand.

  “Did you do it on purpose?” The same thing he’d asked Eddie. Sometimes intentions mattered. “Did you mean to hit Lily Rose?”

  “God, no. I would never . . . It makes me sick, remembering it.” He cupped a hand over his mouth and rubbed his stomach.

  Gray braced himself to clean up puke off the kitchen floor. “It was an accident. You’re
guilty of carelessness or something like that, but you didn’t hurt her intentionally. That matters.”

  “I don’t know if it does.” The boy’s voice was bleak. “And I didn’t stop. I just left her there.”

  “That’s something you’re going to have to figure out how to make up for.”

  “I’ll be making up for it in prison.”

  Where was Christine when he needed a legal expert?

  “I don’t know. But I think you’ll get a chance to tell them how badly you feel. How much you regret hurting anyone. What you’re willing to do to make up for having done this terrible thing. And that can make all the difference. If you mean it.”

  “I don’t know if I can say all that.”

  “You can. You’ll have people with you, people who will be there to help you get through it.”

  Adrian shook his head, staring at the floor. “I don’t think so.”

  It had been so long since Gray had had a family, he didn’t feel comfortable insisting the boy was wrong. Plus, people could be assholes.

  But some people aren’t assholes. As bitter as Gray sometimes felt, his entire loathe-the-world-and-everyone-in-it shtick had started feeling old sometime back when Eddie was parodying his faire accent and manipulating Gray into ordering pizza after a long day.

  Most people, even, aren’t assholes.

  The question was, did he want to be part of most people, or to keep his grip on the cranky-bastard reputation he’d cultivated for years, intentionally or not?

  Even though being a cranky bastard held a kind of comforting appeal, like an old pair of shoes, Gray was pretty sure he’d wandered back into the non-asshole group.

  Probably ought to make an effort to stay there.

  “If that’s the case, you let me know. I’ll come.”

  “You don’t even know me.” But Adrian’s spine had unkinked itself, and he’d pulled his gaze from the floor to stare at Gray with wide eyes, as if he weren’t sure it was safe to take him seriously.